A general slice of life from a 40 soon to be 50 something husband, father, mountain biker,... Whatever I am into, I am REALLY into. Life is always better with gear. This blog follows my interests to a high level of mumbo jumbo detail

Monday, July 18, 2005

Married cyclists and the Doghouse

Single cyclists usually don't spend much time in the dog house. If you are a married cyclist than you know the way to the dog house. If you are a married cyclist with children then the path is well worn.

Tell me, how many times have you planned a ride for the same day/time that something else was planned? Or had your ride go longer than you planned because youa) had a flatb) forgot how hard that particular loop wasc) bonkedd) were riding so well that you added on an extra hillclimbe) crashed

Or how many times have you been so trashed from a hard ride that when you got home you told your wife you played with the kids when you actually fell asleep on the floor while they made you part of their fort?

This weekend we went to a friends cabin out in the country, and I brought my bike to do a ride out there. I had it in my mind to do this one loop, and was just really focused on blowing my self out as my second day of a hard block. It was HOT. Climbed this super hard climb at first then was hauling on this rolling road towards the next town.

Oh no. 15miles? I thought it was only a few miles after this climb. But I gotta do this loop. I had sort of reached that point of no return, turning back would probably be worse then forging on. What to do? Forge on.

I was hammering. Flying as best I could. Pushing yourself to your limit is hard to do. Winning is good motivation, just trying to be your best is good motivation. But there is nothing like that feeling of knowing how much trouble you are going to be in when you get home to make you ride out of your skin.

There were rollers, on an on. Another big climb, then a road that was supposed to be flat and fast that was hilly and HARD. The beautiful scenery of Virginia was getting overshadowed by the pain, the heat, and the fact that I had no clue how far I still had to go. This route was part of the Mountains of Misery challenge century. 103 miles. And I had been doing a 40 mile section of it. It was tough. My wife did it last year in a screaming time of 7hrs. I was 2:45 for my ride. I have a ton of respect for her cause this was not a lollygagging ride.

Needless to say, I was in the doghouse when I finally made it back. I misjudged again. Which wasn't nice of me. ...But it was a good ride! At least I have this BLOG to tell about how well I rode, cause my wife sure didn't want to hear about it. My goodness today I just tooled around the neighborhood and could hardly turn the pedals.

Man, I remember this one time when our first son was just a baby. We had planned a night out and our friends were going to watch him. First time out in a LONG time. My riding has started to go by the wayside months before, but I'd just found out about block training and had been doing some 3day blocks of like 1 hr hard. And after about 2 months, I'd gotten some speed back and was starting to have fun on the bike again.

I was on this ride, and was just riding out of my skin, it was one of those incredible rides that you just read about and dream about. I could do no wrong from technical sections to climbing. And I just added one more section cause I was flying. When I got home, it was not a pretty sight. I just don't think my wife wanted to hear how I cleaned this section and how I climbed the horse trail faster than I have in months.

I will try harder to be more realistic in my time estimates for a ride. But you know, it is just the nature of things. Mountain bikers, cyclists in general even just have short term memory loss and men especially will always say, " Oh Yeah Honey, I'll be going for just an hour spin"